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Two-dimensional speckle tracking echocardiography assessed right ventricular function and exercise capacity in pre-capillary pulmonary hypertension

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Abstract

Resting two-dimensional speckle tracking echocardiography (2D-STE) identified right ventricular (RV) systolic function were reported to predict exercise capacity in pulmonary hypertension (PH) patients, but little attention had been payed to 2D-STE detected RV diastolic function. Therefore, we aim to elucidate and compare the relations between 2D-STE identified RV diastolic/systolic functions and peak oxygen consumption (PVO2) determined by cardiopulmonary exercise testing (CPET) in pre-capillary PH. 2D-STE was performed in 66 pre-capillary PH patients and 28 healthy controls. Linear correlation and multivariate regression analyses were performed to evaluate and compare the relations between RV 2D-STE parameters and PVO2. Receiver operating characteristic curves were used to compare the predictive value of 2D-STE parameters in predicting the cut-off—PVO2 < 11 ml/min/kg. There were significant differences of all the 2D-STE parameters between PH patients and healthy controls. In patients, RV-peak global longitudinal strain (GLS, rs = − 0.498, P < 0.001), RV- peak systolic strain rate (GSRs, rs = − 0.537, P < 0.001) and RV- peak early diastolic strain rate (GSRe, rs = 0.527, P < 0.001) significantly correlated with PVO2, but no significant correlation was observed between RV- peak late diastolic strain rate (GSRa, rs = 0.208, P = 0.093) and PVO2. The first multivariate regression analysis of clinical data without echocardiographic parameters identified WHO functional class, NT-proBNP and BMI as independent predictors of PVO2 (Model-1, adjusted r2 = 0.421, P < 0.001); Then we added conventional echocardiographic parameters and 2D-STE parameters to the clinical data, identified S,(Model-2,adjusted r2 = 0.502, P < 0.001), RV-GLS (Model-3, adjusted r2 = 0.491, P < 0.001), RV-GSRe (Model-4, adjusted r2 = 0.500, P < 0.001) and RV-GSRs (Model-5, adjusted r2 = 0.519, P < 0.001) as independent predictors of PVO2, respectively. The predictive power was increased, and Model-5 including RV-GSRs showed the highest predictive capability. ROC curves found RV-GSRs expressed the strongest predictive value (AUC = 0.88, P < 0.001), and RV-GSRs > − 0.65/s had a 88.2% sensibility and 82.2% specificity to predict PVO2 < 11 ml/min/kg. 2D-STE assessed RV function improves the prediction of exercise capacity represented by PVO2 in pre-capillary PH.

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Funding

The present study was supported by the grant of Capital Health Development and Scientific Research Projects (Grant No. 2016–2-4036) and CAMS Initiative for Innovative Medical (Grant No. 2016-I2 M-3-006).

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  1. Bing-Yang Liu, Wei-Chun Wu and Qi-Xian Zeng have contributed equally to this work.

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Cardiology, Pulmonary Vascular Disease Center, State Key Laboratory of Cardiovascular Disease, Fuwai Hospital, National Center for Cardiovascular Diseases, Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences and Peking Union Medical College, No. 167 North Lishi Road, Xicheng District, Beijing, 100037, People’s Republic of China

    Bing-Yang Liu, Qi-Xian Zeng, Zhi-Hong Liu, Xiao-Ling Cheng, Qin Luo, Zhi-Hui Zhao, Li Huang, Jian-Guo He & Chang-Ming Xiong

  2. Department of Echocardiography, State Key Laboratory of Cardiovascular Disease, Fuwai Hospital, National Center for Cardiovascular Diseases, Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences and Peking Union Medical College, Beijing, 100037, People’s Republic of China

    Wei-Chun Wu, Li-Li Niu, Yue Tian & Hao Wang

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All the authors take responsibility for all aspects of the reliability and freedom from bias of the data presented and their discussed interpretation.

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Correspondence to Chang-Ming Xiong.

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The present study was approved by the Ethics Committee of Fuwai Hospital (No. 2018-1063). All procedures performed in our study involving human participants were in accordance with the 1964 Helsinki declaration and its later amendments.

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Liu, BY., Wu, WC., Zeng, QX. et al. Two-dimensional speckle tracking echocardiography assessed right ventricular function and exercise capacity in pre-capillary pulmonary hypertension. Int J Cardiovasc Imaging 35, 1499–1508 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10554-019-01605-w

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